>>508330372let's say you have an entity that acts as the spark of Being "God" if you will
it splits itself off into these sub entities that paint out the world.
this world has no "space", no stars, or sun, rather luminescence varies like the weather
over time these shards break off over and over to different levels of sentience for animals and peoples alike.
the larger, more ancient shard end up as being more forces of nature and seeks to subsume the lesser under them after a time
acting as regulators to the peoples who collectively are building their cultures and making their way in the world
most cannot resist the power of these ancient being and end up being subsumed under the ancients domain as an attempt to reintegrate a grand unity with the Core
the story focus on a particular people who historically became nomads after their civilization lost a war against an Ancient (singular)
overtime they manage to hide themselves away in an land that is unstable and periodically "scrambles" itself
this instability is why the Ancients steer clear of it as they are entities of order,
however this safety does not come cheap as the King (who is semi immortal) of these peopel enacts a ritual periodically where some of the population are sacrificed to become souls that then integrate themselves into a device that works like an Anchor giving sentience to the capital city's "space" thus allowing it to persist even though the landscape is reshaping itself around it.
the City itself is encased in its own megastructure (look up arcology to get the general idea)
in between "scrambles" parts of the population go out as temporary frontier colonists to collect resources and also nurture repopulation to make up for those sacrificed
the first "conflict" of the story revolves around a conspiracy hinting that The King is secretly sabotaging efforts to research an Artificial Sentience to replace the need for human sacrifice as this would directly challenge his "irreplaceability"
